Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Swimming into the abyss

a·byss(-bs)

n.

1. An immeasurably deep chasm, depth, or void

I imagine this is how I would describe any body of open water if I had no frame of reference, couldn't see or touch the ground. The other thing it makes me think of is as a young girl, looking off the edge of the high dive board at the pool for the first time and picking up the nerve to actually jump (I still don't like the high dive). The first part of the triathlon is swimming. I can't count the number of times I have said "I won't do a triathlon because of the swim". Here we are, less than a week away from the triathlon and I am surprising even myself by saying that I am loving the swim days of our training. We started in a pool, in a lane, tethered by a rope that I cut to length by somewhat guessing how much distance to have between us. We had new swimsuits, goggles, and cap and we headed down the lane for that first time. As we neared the other side of the pool my heart stopped as I realized that we had not discussed a signal to let her know that she was nearing that really hard cement wall. I tugged on the rope as if I was playing tug-a-war with a beast, hoping it would catch her attention. THANK GOODNESS!!!!!! She popped right up and thus we had a signal for the end of the pool. Luckily in the open water there are no cement walls, but she has to swim a straight line...against the current. That is so much easier said than done. We started out with short distances and each time we swim a little further. It's a learning process for sure but thank goodness we are flexible and having a great time. We have time to squeeze one or two more swims in before the big day on Sunday before we take that big dive into the abyss.